Name: Christopher Boyer

Home Town: Pittsburg, CA

Age: 21

Ethnicity: white

Gender: male  

Interview Questions—Literacy Narrative

1. Try to think of your earliest memories of writing and reading.  What do you remember of reading and writing before you began school?  Who helped you with it and what was that like?

“My mom would always read me a bed time story every night, ranging from books like Humpty Dumpty to The Giving Tree. In retrospect, it was nice because it showed me that she cared about my brother and I.”

2. What kinds of writing did you see your parents, siblings, and other family members doing as you were growing up?  What did they read, where, and when?

“I always saw my mom working on her taxes at the kitchen table and reading the newspaper in the morning as well as the Catholic Digest. My brother always read Sports Illustrated Magazine whenever the next edition arrived in the mail. My grandpa liked to read Louis L’amour books that we had in our family bookshelf whenever he came to visit, and my grandma read newspaper articles of various topics.”

3. What stories did your parents tell you about their own efforts to learn to read and write?  What kinds of values did they place on reading and writing?

“My mom told me that she was brought up reading the bible at Sunday School, but didn’t tell me about other efforts.  My mom always told me that reading was very important to improve my brain development as a kid, and as far as writing goes she didn’t really talk about it with me.”

4. How did reading and writing change as you entered elementary school?  What did you do with it?

“Initially, I learned to write both the capital and lowercase letters of the alphabet in printing, but as I increased in grade level I learned how to write in cursive because my teachers told me it was important for my future. I utilized my ability to write to create stories and I had to have written/typed at least ten when I was in elementary school for fun. Reading was utilized for me at Sunday School every week, and I read various books for fun and I don’t remember specific books but I read a lot.”

5. What are you asked to do with reading and writing at this point in your lives?

“I always have reading assignments in every class, and as far as writing goes on paper, I type on computers more than I handwrite notes for class. I use a mixture of both though for work because as a Resident Advisor I have to handwrite documentations of policy violations then type them up and submit them as a report to the University. Also, I utilize paper writing for tracking my progress working out at the gym, writing down my homework, and taking various notes throughout my day.”

6. When you were growing up, how much school reading and school writing was done with computers?  What kinds of things did you do?  What values did your teachers place on computer literacy?

“I handwrote everything at elementary school with the exception of my computer class, where we learned how to type efficiently. The only reading we had to do on computers was when the teacher had a presentation for us and they utilized a projector so we could all see it. As I got older, homework began to be available online and then we would talk about it in class. This is true throughout high school and college as well because almost every paper I’ve had to do had to be typed. The understanding of computers and programs in computer class was valued highly because I was told that we would utilize this a lot more as we grow up because technology is constantly improving.”

7.In the next ten years, what will reading and writing become?  What skills and understandings about online literacy will people need to have?  Why?

“What I imagine for this is that most work will be done on computers, but I still see paper books and reports being used because staring at a screen for extended periods of time takes a toll on your eyes at a faster rate than reading a paper book or news article. Regarding online literacy, I think that people will have to become fluent in it because that’s the way the world is headed as technology continues to improve. If you don’t know how to use a computer or access some kind of online database this will be a hindrance in finding work. The world as we know it is becoming a digital world, and basic computer skills are expected by every person.”

“The relationship between social change and literacy education, it is now suggested, may be stronger in the other direction.”

Meaning that social change is brought about via literacy education? I can understand that. Reforming the way people communicate with one another may not be such a bad idea. However deciding what is considered literate and what is not is a dangerous area to explore. I personally believe that if I can understand what I am hearing, whether or not I think it is grammatically correct to my standards, that person is literate enough to convey their point clearly. On the other hand, I believe that many disputes in the work place are caused by massive misunderstandings. For example a guy trying to explain that a certain activity is too tough or dangerous for a woman to complete may come off as a demeaning sexist comment if the dialect of either party is misconstrued. Therefore a generic literacy education program may put into place a more positive social change. So I actually agree with the statement.

Hello, my name is Rachel Astin Dunn. It’s an unusual middle name I am aware, but it was my mothers maiden name and it makes my initials rad like radical. I think it’s cool… Anyways, I am one of eight kids. I have five older brothers (best thing to say on any first date) and two younger sisters. That’s just the overview, it gets much more complicated. My two oldest brothers are only half brothers, we have the same mom, and between them I have four nieces and two nephews. So I am Auntie Rach to a few youngins. On with the complications, four of my siblings are adopted but biological to each other. They were the four youngest of twelve when they were put into foster care. We initially wanted to adopt the two little girls, but when we visited them for the first time and met their two brothers we simply could not separate this little family any further. Thus began the amazing rollercoaster that is my family life. I believe that leaves just me and my only fully biological brother, Gregory. We could not be more opposite if we tried. He is currently at UC Merced in his senior year going for a degree in Biology Engineering, while I am an English Edu major with a Theatre minor; yet our love and support for each other is unconditional. Wow this autobiography is going on forever, two more things and I’ll wrap it up. My cat is my life. I am fully aware that I am dead on my way to being an old cat lady, and am perfectly okay with that. I rescued him from a box outside a grocery store when he was only days old and looked nothing like a cat. I bottle fed him for the first two months of his life and we have been attached at the hip ever since. His name is Small Cat, partially because I never made my mind up on a name for him. And last but not least I just celebrated my one year with my boyfriend and we couldn’t be happier. And now I’ll stop talking about myself.

I unfortunately write more nowadays than read. I say unfortunately because when I began writing for myself and not only assignments, I like to think that I gathered my writing voice from a variety of authors I really enjoyed. I read everything from good ol’ Shakespeare to Nicholas Sparks, to my favorite which is the ever popular James Patterson. I began writing in a very formal tone and manner, then as I began to read more modern novels I believe that is when I began to relax into whatever “voice” it is I have today. I believe that the purpose of reading and writing is ultimately the ability to communicate. When we were asked to define Literacy I said that it was the ability to convey ones’ thoughts and intentions thoroughly. Therefore, I may be shunned as an English major for saying this, but I believe when it comes to communicating there is no right or wrong. If I understand what you said to me than that is all that matters. A question I often am asked is as an English major is why I don’t  correct people when their grammar is astonishingly wrong. My standard answer is, because I understood it. My four adopted siblings spoke Spanish before we adopted them and in the beginning of our time together. The most difficult time my family ever faced was the transition into complete English speaking. One of the most spectacular occurrences in life is if you’ve ever watched children communicate with their newfound friends on the first day of pre-school. Young children do not discriminate, the figure out ways to function. What I am getting at is that very quickly after we adopted my four Spanish speaking siblings, Gregory and I, having never spoken or even heard a Spanish word in our life, began translating. Because we understood. We did not look for ways to correct them but to  understand them, for our sake and our parents.  I believe that reading and writing is essential for communication to thrive. New dialects are born out of people trying to communicate with each other across language barriers. That is what I believe and what I took from reading Szwed.